Is there any indication that they solicited business in Germany? And how, in practice, could they enforce that if this canadian entity has not broken any canadian law and canada as such has no impetus to enforce german law?
Many countries have signed treaties that provide for enforcement process for judgments rendered in another signatory. It's in the spirit of reciprocity. If Canada wants to be able to reach a German national, Germany will insist on a reciprocal arrangement to reach a Canadian national. (I don't know whether they have such an agreement, but such agreements are common.)
Contrary to what a lot of HNers may believe, judicial and procedural boundaries aren't necessarily coextensive with national borders.
There are criminal copyright infringement laws in both countries... But the lawyers here cannot actually force the German state prosecute anyway, and it seems they did not file a criminal complaint anyway, and even if they did the prosecutors' office would most likely deny prosecution against EasyDNS since they are only a service provider and not a direct party to the alleged infringement. The prosecutors' office would probably even deny a prosecution against the actual perpetrator because it's just about a single image and thus a minor infraction. So right now it's just a civil matter.
My understanding is making the website available to a country can be soliciting business.
> And how, in practice, could they enforce that if this canadian entity has not broken any canadian law and canada as such has no impetus to enforce german law?
Don't they have deals for such thing? I remember reading that a British court judgement for damages could be enforced in the US.
Oh dear, that would make publishing any website extremely dangerous..